Forum:A new form for Enemies?
I've been meaning to get around to this for a long time but I never really did. So anyway here I am and here we go. I'm proposing, to actually give more of a point to Enemy pages, that we add onto the default enemy layout. As of now, enemy pages just explain what an enemy looks like, and is supposed to clearly tell how they behave. I've been stirring around some ideas in my head for quite a long time now (before my most recent break), and think we could also add what levels the enemy appears in, and tips on how to beat them. The new Layout would look something like this: NAME are enemies in GAME Appearance Behaviour Encounters Level 1 NAME's first appear in level 1 of GAME. They are encountered about half-way through the level, with a group of five of them standing on a rainbow platform. ........ The easiest way to defeat them is by jumping on the platform to the top right and dropping a green bomb on them....... Level 5 Level 9 Level 16 ---- I think you get it. Now I realize that this would take an extreme amount of work, as we would have to revamp 26% of the article on the wiki, but I honestly think that, given enough time, we could do it. So what do you think? Let the discussion begin! 01:22, June 5, 2014 (UTC) :Looks like a good change to me. It would make the info more organized, since game information is a generic grouping. 18:35, June 5, 2014 (UTC) ::It's a good idea. I've always wanted to expand on the "Game information" heading, and this looks pretty good. The only thing I want to point out is that not all enemies have enough information about them to be put into separate headings. Some sections for "Encounters" or "Behaviour" might fit into a few sentences, and those should just be merged under a "Game information" heading, but still following the same structure (ie. Behaviour precedes Encounters). ::I also don't know if we should have subheadings for Encounters, since your example deters npov and shouldn't be put on an article anyways. Stating their placement within each level is kinda kooky as well, especially if an enemy will always be seen doing the same thing. Subheadings would work for enemies which have prominent placement, like when an enemy needs to be used to beat a level or something. 22:34, June 5, 2014 (UTC) ::: My opposition is against the "Encounters" section. This section is pretty much walkthrough content, and why would walkthrough content be on a page about an enemy? It is walkthrough content in that it details level specific content about how to pass an enemy. Placing detailed content like this on an enemy page I think goes against the scope of the page, and also, is a bit awkward. When people come to the page about an enemy, I believe they come there to read and know information about it. :::While level specific tips at first appear helpful, they are placed in a place where people would rarely come for help with something, which pretty much defeats their purpose of being there. Another problem that will be encountered if this is done is that some enemy pages will have more walkthrough content for that level then the game's page does, creating even more awkwardness in that information for that level is on a page other than the game's page. Of course, that content on the enemy page could always be put back on to the game's page, however, it would seem awkward if a walkthrough for a game describes only how to pass the enemies in that level instead of traversal. :::Another problem that would likely appear in the future if this is done is that people may add video walkthroughs to the page, as they do show how to kill the enemies, and for the majority of Nitrome games a single walkthrough can you usually be mimicked quite effectively, and the walkthrough does show a method of killing the enemies. However, the problem with this becomes that the walkthrough section of the game's game page and its video is essentially being copy-pasted on to multiple pages. And what differentiates this from the game's walkthrough section? Not much, which then begs the question "why is this being done?". :::Another problem that will be encountered will be finding people to do this. The only person to do text walkthroughs for the past year has been Random Storykeeper, and I think she was the only person to do that in the year prior and the year prior to that. Basically, no one does text walkthroughs any more, and if they won't even do that for a game page, I highly doubt they will even consider doing it for a section of a page on a page that, theoretically, doesn't receive as much traffic as the page for a game (I assume a page for a game receives more traffic that average component articles as a game page is more central, and also has helpful content on completing the game). ::: However, instead of level specific content, I suggest just a general "tips" section. This section could list general tips on how to kill an enemy. If a certain type of behaviour, environment construction in relation to the enemy's location, a or a variation of an enemy are common or have a certain degree of appearances throughout the game, this could be added to the section as general content. :::Something else to keep in mind is that level specific instructions on how to pass/kill enemies may become repetitive if several levels are covered, as some enemies may not display differences or major differences in kill strategy throughout the entire game, and thus, level-by-level coverage could become cumbersome as it would essentially be copying and pasting content. :::Now, behaviour could effect the kill strategy, however, many enemies across many games have the same programmed behaviour throughout the entire game. Level design could also effect how to kill them, however, how many Nitrome games actually have level design that seriously effect how to an enemy? :::Another solution is to just list in the infobox (via an added parameter) what level the enemies appear in, however, this requires you go over all the videos or text walkthroughs on the game page and add the level something appears in. Most people won't want to do that, as it does become rather lengthy and time consuming. Although on a wiki things don't have to be instantly complete, I highly doubt someone will actually add content to a section of a template, especially if it can't be marked it's incomplete. :::Something else: I think enemy articles are meant to be encyclopedic pages, and not game walkthroughs. As I mentioned before, most people likely come to enemy pages to find out information about that enemy, not how to kill it. The sudden change of putting guides on to pages turns these pages into part encyclopedic pages and part game guide, and of course, as mentioned before, this is awkward in terms of placement, as people theoretically go to a game's main game page for walkthroughs and not individual component pages. :::Basically, I think a section for general tips on how to kill an enemy would work better than a level-by-level examination on how to kill each individual enemy. -- 22:47, June 5, 2014 (UTC) ::::Many times you say "people read the enemies pages to learn nformation about the enemy, not how to kill them." But I'm pretty sure that is not actually the case, because I don't think almost any "just-readers" at all go to the enemy pages. There are multiple reasons for this, one being that the Game Information sections on many page are very poorly written and hardly tell anything, and another being why would anyone want to actually go to an enemy page to learn about an enemy? Pretty much all the information about an enemy can be learned simply by observing a level for a moment, or playing it one time through. I wouldn't pull up a whole other tab to go to the wiki page and figure out how the Puffing monster is going to attack me before I go near it. But if we add specific walkthroughs on how to defeat enemies, I could go to the wiki page when I keep dying on the same part in level 15 of CC2 where the puffing monster launches and kills me and figure out how to pass it, instead of having to watch/read through a walkthrough on how to play the entire level. I am hoping that adding this Encounters section will increase traffic on enemy wiki pages. ::::I don't think that walkthroughs on enemy pages would be repeats of the game page because the game page walkthroughs tell how to beat entire levels, while the enemy Encounters section would only tell how to specifically tell how to beat a small section/s of a level. As for a problem with adding videos, it is a simple matter of saying "no adding videos to Encounters section" in the Manual of Style. However, an alternative to videos would be we could add smaller .gifs to the Encounters section for each level. It could be sort of a smaller version of the videos to level walkthroughs. :::: 01:40, June 6, 2014 (UTC) (Reset Indent) Maybe changing "Encounters" to "Tips and Tricks" or something similar would work. Instead of writing about when they are encountered and how to beat them, just how to beat them and any tricks/glitches associated with them. 12:56, June 6, 2014 (UTC) :Leaning more in NOBODY's favour here. Subsections of levels wouldn't work for many enemy pages because most of them, if not all, have very similar placement not specific enough to be mentioned within the enemy article itself. I'd save the actual placement of every enemy per level within the game article, but have a generalisation of where this enemy is normally found, how to defeat it, etc. For less complex enemies, we should keep to "Game information", but make sure this general section follows the same order as it would with the more specific headings, ie. the first sentence is about where this enemy is found, the second is how to beat it. :But yeah, it is pretty redundant to restate the level the enemy is in and give a walkthrough for that one little section of the level. How do you defeat alien saucers in level 1? You shoot them with your head. How do you defeat alien saucers in level 15? You shoot them with your head. It's not exactly worth having ten sections with the exact same information, since you basically kill all enemies in Bullethead with your (uh) head. 07:19, July 2, 2014 (UTC) ::: Well, this might sound weird but then this is a comment. The name of the forum post is little ambiguous and could be interpreted as something regarding the appearance enemies take. I suggest renaming this from "A new form for Enemies?" to "A New Organization for Enemy Articles". That way it will be made clear what this is about. This is pretty much obsolete as of User blog:Emitewiki2/Combining enemy pages. 00:36, September 1, 2015 (UTC)